


that's the way it goes

by statusquo_ergo



Series: it's not pain, it's just uncertainty [6]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Prison, Psychological Trauma, Sappy Ending, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 02:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10295654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/statusquo_ergo/pseuds/statusquo_ergo
Summary: Mike thought he could get away with leaving Danbury behind by never talking about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Hey do you still take prompts? Someone calling someone "my love" softly and in all seriousness.

Something inside of Mike broke during his time at Danbury.

The moment he set foot out the front door and past the gates, he buried it down deep, convinced he’d never have to confront it again as long as he lived. Harvey saw it in his eyes, in the way his calm relief at seeing Harvey flipped to frenetic glee the moment he saw Rachel and settled just as fast into banality, routine, simple expectation as he hugged her, standing there waiting for the last month to fall off of him.

It doesn’t work like that.

For awhile, Harvey believed it; not really, but he wanted to, told himself he did, insisted that Mike was one of those imaginary people who can spend time in a place like that surrounded by the sorts of people he was and emerge unchanged, heading right back into the life he left behind, picking up where he left off.

He should have known better than to pretend.

It’s for the best that Rachel was the one to call off the wedding; Mike wanted to, Harvey’s pretty sure, but he would never have admitted to it. It was enough like pulling teeth to persuade him to agree that she’d made the right decision, that there was no “I should’ve” or “If only she had” to be found amongst the shards. They’re better off as friends; they always have been.

At the time, Harvey was afraid that would be the thing that did him in.

It wasn’t.

Mike is back at the firm for five weeks, working in his capacity as a fully licensed attorney at law for four and a half, and seeing Harvey for eleven days before it happens.

In a meeting with opposing counsel of their biggest currently ongoing case—big enough, or rather weird enough that Mike and Harvey are handling it together—Harvey makes what he considers to be a pretty innocuous and routine play to trick the most gullible of their adversaries, implying that he’s privy to some damning information in the hopes that they’ll slip up and provide the truth. He’s done it hundreds of times, and he knows Mike has too; it’s part of the job.

This time, for some reason that Harvey can’t fathom, he’s barely finished his taunt before Mike shoves away from the table and walks briskly from the conference room, his posture slightly hunched and his brow deeply furrowed. Opposing counsel isn’t going to fall for the trick now, not after that, so Harvey says something smug about information they already know he has to imply that there’s more to it than meets the eye and leaves them to find their own damn way out as he storms after Mike, ready to give him a hell of an earful.

The blackout shades of Mike’s office are half-drawn, and Harvey hesitates with his hand on the door handle; Mike never draws his shades. What the fuck is going on?

When he pushes the door open, Mike doesn’t turn to meet him as he expects but rather tenses his shoulders and clenches his fists, digging his nails into his palms, and Harvey hears him inhale sharply.

Shit.

“Mike?” he ventures.

Mike doesn’t reply. After a moment, Harvey steps further into the office, closer to the windows where Mike has planted himself but not close enough to touch.

“Mike, what happened,” he tries again, and Mike’s back expands as he takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“It’s nothing,” he says after a moment, his voice trembling only slightly. Harvey isn’t buying it for a second.

“Come on,” he says, trying not to sound confrontational, but Mike shakes his head.

“Sorry,” he says, “sorry. I’m fine.”

It’s not a panic attack, Harvey can see that much, but then what?

Something a long time coming.

“What did I say?” Harvey presses, and Mike sighs again.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

“Mike, if it made you react this way, it’s not stupid.” Harvey steps a little closer. “Talk to me.”

Looking over his shoulder, Mike offers a self-deprecating little smile.

“I don’t know,” he says again, “or, not exactly. But I thought we were so prepared going into that meeting; I mean, the guy faked his own death, what do we need to lie about, right, and then you just blast into that thing about the bipolar disorder and I didn’t see it coming at _all,_ and I felt so—singled out, blindsided, and I just…”

He makes a weak sound, an unsuccessful attempt at laughter, and that’s quite enough of that.

“Mike, go home,” Harvey says. “I’ll call Ray, just…go downstairs whenever you’ve got yourself under control, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Harvey, no,” Mike protests, turning to face him; “it’s like two o’clock, that’s—no, that’s not fair.”

“Go home,” Harvey repeats. “I’m not asking.”

Mike’s smile comes out more like a grimace and he nods, rubbing his reddened eyes and leaving with his head down.

With a touch of nostalgia, Harvey clasps his hands behind his back and looks out the window for a minute before returning to his office to call Ray and then do the smallest amount of work he can get away with before calling it quits for the day.

Thirty-six minutes total.

—

When Harvey gets to the penthouse, the door is unlocked; it doesn’t matter, not with the building’s intense security and their neighbors’ general disinterest in one another, but after all the years Mike spent living in a series of nearly-condemned buildings in the shittiest parts of Brooklyn, flipping the tumbler is second nature to him.

Harvey bites his lip and braces himself before he enters.

Curled on the sofa, Mike stares blindly at the coffee table as the television plays quietly in the background, TNT or USA or something.

Harvey sits at the other end and rests his elbows on his knees.

“I’m sorry,” Mike says after awhile. “I don’t know what happened, it just…came out of nowhere, I couldn’t stop crying.”

Harvey nods.

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “We’ve still got them up against the wall.”

Mike smiles and rubs his shoulder nervously.

“I didn’t know I was so fucked up.”

You’re not, you’re not.

Reaching out, Harvey takes Mike’s hand in his and rubs his thumb against his knuckles.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Mike laughs quietly. “I don’t know what to say, I don’t—I don’t even know what happened.”

Harvey tips his head from side to side uncertainly. “I’m no doctor, but you know, when you spend a little time in therapy for your panic attacks, you pick up some things.”

“So what’s your diagnosis?”

He hums in the back of his throat; he doesn’t have one, exactly, but at least Mike is talking now.

“What kind of support did you have when you were in prison?”

Mike scoffs. “You were there.”

“Mike, come on.”

Frowning, Mike looks away and speaks into the cushions. “You. And Kevin, when he could, and Julius, kind of.”

“Sounds pretty stable,” Harvey says pejoratively. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you now; I don’t think it’s panic attacks, but you’d be a better judge of that than I would.” Scowling, he flexes the fingers of his free hand, trying to crack his knuckles.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I wasn’t…better for you, while you were in there.”

“For god’s sake, Harvey, you spent thirty hours a day getting me _out_ of there,” Mike exclaims. “My brains would be smeared across the wall of the day room if it wasn’t for you!”

“You wouldn’t have been in there in the first place if it wasn’t for me,” Harvey corrects, “but I’m just trying to say I—I wish things had been different, I wish you hadn’t had to go through all that.”

Mike turns his palm over and threads his fingers together with Harvey’s.

They sit in silence for a good long while before Mike sighs with a shallow smile.

“My love,” he says softly, and Harvey’s gaze gentles as he looks over at him.

“We’ll figure this out,” he promises, and Mike closes his eyes.

Harvey squeezes his hand in a way he hopes is at least a little comforting.

“In the meantime,” he announces, “I found some divorce papers I’m pretty sure opposing counsel didn’t think we were gonna get our hands on, and I could use your help figuring out what we can get out of them.”

Mike’s lips quirk up at the corner and Harvey follows suit when he stands to retrieve his briefcase.

“You are, you know,” Mike says. Harvey nods and picks up the casefile.

“Me too.”

Now, about this phony suicide…

**Author's Note:**

> The case that sends Mike over the edge is based on the [case](http://www.in.gov/sos/files/SchrenkerChargesPCwithWarrant.pdf) of Marcus Schrenker, who in 2009 attempted to fake his own death to escape multiple charges of securities fraud. (Spoiler alert: It didn't work.)
> 
> As he states, Harvey isn't a doctor and can't diagnose Mike, but Mike's behavior is based on my own experience with PTSD.
> 
> Title is from "The Break" from _Next to Normal_ (2008).


End file.
